May Meeting - Hands-on electronics workshop

Justin Burns

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May 2, 2011, 4:46:31 PM5/2/11

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Just placed an order for 10 of the transparent half-breadboards. I ratcheted down the volume (from 15) because I found a harbor freight coupon for multimeters @ $2.99 ea.

I decided we would be in a better position kit-wise with 10 boards and 10 multimeters (the two main non-consumable parts in the kit), rather than 15 boards and no meters, so I'm picking up 10 of these as well.

Now the 64K question: What should we choose for a first project?

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Here are some things I think would make for an effective project:

1. Low materials cost - We're not at a point yet where we can buy a stack of arduinos, or a big LED matrix for each kit (at least not in blue :). Ideally it's mostly stuff we have lying around, or stuff that's dirt cheap in bulk. We'll probably need to place any parts orders at least a couple weeks before the meeting.

2. Simple enough for people without extensive electronics background, but fun/interesting for those with more experience.

3. Lends itself to teaching principles that apply to more than just this particular project

4. Can be completed in 90 minutes or less; alternatively, can be built upon/extended in subsequent workshops.

5. For extra credit, it would be super-sweet if the finished projects could ultimately be hooked together into a bigger version (e.g. the "Conway's Game of Life" kit @ http://www.ladyada.net/make/conway/ ) or otherwise used together.

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As John pointed out on Saturday, we have a few people in the group with pretty significant PIC experience. Variants like the PICAXE are cheap enough, and pretty easy to program for - no Assembly required. (PIC guys - What's needed for a power supply?)

For simplicity's sake (mostly due to time constraints) we should probably program the chips ahead of time, but getting in and modifying the code might be an option for those with more experience.

I'll throw out the first idea/suggestion: something based around IR emitter/detector pairs.

For example, a morse code repeater kit - each unit could have an incoming photodiode, an activity LED, and an outgoing IR LED, plus a pushbutton to send codes - the pic could be preprogrammed to interface with the right components- you could then use multiple kits to relay the messages further. more experienced members could work on something to decode the final message and put it on a scrolling LED/7seg display, instead of building the comparatively simple repeater. (example circuit/code: http://www.hamradio.cc/projects/Morse_Code_Decoder_Circuit.php)

Speaking of IR LEDs: Doug Marsh, one of our founding members, has been making custom Laser Tag guns equipment using PIC controllers. We could build rudimentary taggers (guns) on the breadboards, then chase each other around with them. Doug probably has a lot of relevant circuit designs and code already.

So what should we build?

-justinb

p.s. here are links to more PIC project ideas:

http://www.inklesspress.com/picaxe_projects.htm

http://www.instructables.com/group/PICAXE%20Projects/

http://picprojects.org/projects/picprojects.htm